The Persistence of Memory
by moon71
Summary: Shuichi and Eiri's first meeting in the park is now legendary. But what was Eiri thinking that night? Here is what I think... Complete!
1. Chapter 1

**THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY by Moon71**

"_It's all there, in our persistent memory." Salvador Dali_

"_I used to be like you." Yuki Eiri to Shindou Shuichi, Gravitation Episode 13_

**Summary: **While walking in the park one evening, Eiri has a fateful encounter. (Well, we all know _that, _but this is from _his_ point of view!)

**Rating: **K – T (some mild naughty bits, nothing much)

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Gravitation, Maki Murakami, Salvador Dali, Harper Lee, _To Kill a Mocking Bird _or, most heartbreakingly of all, _The persistence of memory _or any other Dali paintings!!!

**Dedication: **For Overskill – hope to see the next part of your story soon; in the meantime, hope you like mine!

**Author's Note****s: **What was Eiri thinking the night he ran into Shuichi and trashed his lyrics? Probably nothing like this, but what the hell. One of the themes that really hooked me on Gravitation was the difference between Uesugi Eiri the boy and Yuki Eiri the man – it always seemed to me that it was himself, not Yuki, that Shuichi really reminded Eiri of (though his confusion about this in the last couple of volumes of the manga made sense in the context of his finally recognising his feelings for Shuichi.)

This is one of those stories, like _Jilted John, _which was jammed in my brain for ages – it was great to prise it loose!

_The Persistence of Memory _is the actual title of one or more versions of Salvador Dali's "soft watches." The title caught in my memory almost as soon as I came up with this idea, and while I was at the Dali Universe in London I was delighted to find the above quote which seemed to sum up what I was trying to say.

* * *

I had come to think of it as _my _park, and never more so than at night.

During the day I had to share it with others. I accepted their company with a decent grace, so long as they minded their own business. If they came up to me asking if I was Yuki Eiri, the writer, I would look at them blankly and ask "Yuki _Who?"_ or reply to them in deliberately complicated English. Sometimes having light coloured features could be an unexpected bonus. If any girls tried to catch my eye I looked right through them. This was the one place never I picked up women – if any of my myriad girlfriends suggested going to the park for a romantic stroll, I insisted I never went there. Too full of screaming kids, dotty old ladies and flashers, I would complain.

But at night, the park was nearly always empty. And I liked it that way.

So perhaps I was predisposed to dislike the boy before I even saw him. Perhaps if I had met him during the day, I would have reacted differently.

Somehow, though, I doubt it.

Whatever the truth, that night I was walking in the park, deep in thought.

Actually, for once I wasn't thinking about my writing, though perhaps I should have been. For the most part, I had disciplined my mind well enough to stick to the subject I wanted it to concentrate upon and not to wander too far off into its own stream of consciousness. Streams of consciousness could be dangerous.

The only time I let my mind free was in my psychiatrist's office, and that was for one, occasionally two hours a week. The rest of the time, in moments such as this when it was not occupied by driving, reading, cooking, watching television, conversation or sex, my mind had to be satisfied with being the slave of my creative muse. If I wanted it to think about my latest novel, that is what it would think about. If it disobeyed, it would be punished by being forced to make tedious lists of cooking ingredients or reciting the twelve times table up to three hundred. Just because I'm a writer, it doesn't mean I don't know how many beans make five.

But today I was feeling remarkably stable and relaxed, so I allowed my mind to wander where it would… within limits. And so I found myself speculating on narrowness of my universe.

By the time I had left for my walk that night, it was about as narrow as it would ever manage to be, pared down to the barest fundamentals, and I was proud of the fact. I never called my father and hadn't been home in years. I limited the interaction I had with my younger brother Tatsuha to occasional nights of drinking, clubbing and picking up girls – he could always pass for older. He seemed content enough with that – or maybe it was just that he knew if he complained, even that limited contact would come to an end.

My sister Mika and her husband Tohma were harder to deal with. I did my very best to be unpleasant to them - the more they tried to placate me, the more unpleasant I became. But they still persisted beyond all reason - Mika, I suppose out of some familial duty; Tohma out of guilt. Or at least that was the way I chose to see it.

As for my so-called fiancée, the Usami girl… I hardly thought of her at all, except to reflect with a sort of wry amusement that if our families didn't wise up pretty soon, the poor creature was due to die an old maid.

As for friends – I didn't bother with them. The women – even the ones who held out long enough to vaguely be considered girlfriends – didn't count. That was ninety per cent sex and ten per cent necessary social companionship – in other words, one could sometimes feel like a fool turning up at an expensive restaurant, a publisher's cocktail party or a fellow writer's book launch without a date. I had a few acquaintances in the literary world who I was pleased to meet when our paths crossed, but I never actively pursued any of them. It took one to know one, and I didn't want any other writers knowing me too well.

Yes, I was quite happy with my life as it was just then, and as it never would be again.

_If that's so,_ I hear you ask with a smug look on your face, _why do you see a shrink every week?_

And I reply, as I have often been tempted to reply to nosey and persistent scoop-hungry interviewers, _mind your own goddamned business. Next question?_

Let's get back to the topic at hand, shall we? The boy.

Yes, he annoyed me at first sight, just for being there. For disturbing my solitude. And yes, I know my reaction sounds completely unreasonable, not to mention misanthropic, but you have to understand the way my mind works – how a writer's mind works. The smallest things can stimulate the imagination. The briefest snatch of a conversation; the expression on someone's face. For a writer, there is a story behind everything. It feeds the muse, but sometimes it can also drive the writer mad.

The boy vexed me simply because he caught my attention, and in doing so, stimulated my imagination. I had come to the park for peace, to escape my laptop and the never ending voices in my head, demanding I tell their stories. I did not want to think about this boy.

Yet there was just… _something_ about him. It's an unforgivable cliché, but clichés often become clichés precisely because they are true. There was something about the way he carried himself. Though he was obviously young – fifteen or sixteen, was my initial guess - he moved with remarkable grace, bouncing on his heels with the lightness of a dancer or a gymnast. Most boys that age were slovenly, inarticulate, clumsy and graceless; mumbling in their half-broken voices and tripping over their own newly lengthened limbs. I had read somewhere that it was all to do with their brain chemistry going haywire during puberty, but I had my own theory – to wit, that all teenagers were just arseholes. I ought to know – I'd run up against enough of them when I was one.

They were arseholes not because their brains were breaking down and reforming, but because were fighting for their assigned place in the adult world. They'd either turn out to be losers or winners and once that place was decided there would be no going back. Watching this boy it suddenly struck me as a peculiar irony – I would most certainly have been one of the losers, if I had not had my life so thoroughly fucked up for me in New York at the age of sixteen.

New York, strangely enough, made me one of the winners. By seventeen I understood. Passivity, generosity, modesty, sensitivity… all that was for the losers. And so I left the loser called Uesugi Eiri behind, and became what I am now, Yuki Eiri. And I was right to do it – no-one calls me names now. No-one sticks out their foot in corridors to trip me up. No-one demands money from me or pushes me to the back of the queue. And no-one laughs at me.

No-one can touch me now.

This boy looked like one of the losers. Pink hair? Definitely some sort of nerd. Maybe a pansy on top of it. And with crappy dress sense. Even when I was Uesugi Eiri I wouldn't have been caught dead in shorts and trainers. But then when I was Uesugi Eiri I wouldn't have been given a choice.

Nice legs, though.

Nice… _what?_ Where the hell had that come from? It was his grace that did it, his diminutive stature. He just reminded me of a girl.

_Enough of this crap. Start walking again._ _Why have you stopped, anyway?_

That scolding voice in my head was right, of course. More right than I realised. But then I noticed something else about the kid that caught my attention.

He was talking to himself.

_Oh __no, _I remember thinking, _here we go. Looney alert._ But then again, it was not quite so easy to spot a nutcase these days – more often than not, that unnerving, distracted person shouting and gesticulating as they wander towards you turns out just to be some idiot with a hands-free kit. This one had a paper in his hand which he was apparently studying. Maybe he had difficultly with his reading and he needed to sound out the words. But every now and then he would glance upwards, as if thinking. An actor, learning his lines? More likely some swatting student revising for his exams.

But no – as he got within hearing range, I realised that he wasn't talking, but _singing._

Why that interested me, I had no idea. Perhaps because he was singing rather well. It sounded as though he had perfect pitch – though I am in no position to judge. For a brief moment I caught myself wondering what Tohma would make of that voice – before I remembered that I was Yuki Eiri, and Yuki Eiri didn't give a damn about what Seguchi thought about anything. At any rate, the melody was not unpleasing, if a little wistful. I hardly ever listened to popular music – this was probably just some depressing new love song for silly teenage girls to snivel over while they stuffed chocolates into their mouths and lamented the fickle nature of boys.

But then I saw the boy stop and scribble something down on the paper he was clutching.

And all at once, I had a flash of memory, so bright it was dazzling. Another boy, wandering carelessly through another park, clutching a spiral bound reporter's notebook and a pen and pausing every now and then to scribble down ideas. And, of course, at the same time hoping, always hoping, for a glimpse of…

I slammed the door on that thought, not even stopping to wonder where it had come from. Feeling my heart rate increase ever so slightly, I held my position. I was dressed in dark clothes – except for my pale skin and my irksome blonde hair I would probably blend into the background, especially to a boy absorbed in his own thoughts. In a moment this little songbird would be gone and I could go on with my walk.

_What a lot of crap. Who are you hiding from?_

I considered this question for a moment, then decided the scolding voice was right. Hanging around the park in the dark, staring at a boy could earn you a good kicking, especially if the stupid brat had friends following behind. I pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. A man stopping to light up on a slightly breezy night could hardly be accusing of loitering with intent.

But even as I concluded the thought something happened. The breeze picked up, rustling through the branches of the trees, tousling my hair and snatching that paper from the kid's hand – sending it fluttering like a bird into the air. With a cry of distress he began to run after it. And, as if spellbound, I watched him get closer and closer.

I realised my initial assessment had been wrong. He wasn't a boy, but a young man. There was still a childish roundness to his face; a boyish prettiness perhaps, but there was nothing of the greasy skin and transitory, half-formed look of adolescence.

Why – why was I moved by the sight of him? His cute little face and big dark eyes might be just a bit girlish, but there was nothing feminine about his physique – even less so after he had broken into a run and begun pounding in my direction. I didn't like boys or men, I never had. Except for…

Another bright flash. Twinkling eyes; a warm, welcoming smile. Or was it really a sneer? I tried slamming the door on that memory too, but it remained slightly ajar. I tried to dismiss it. It was a different situation, involving a person who no longer existed. Uesugi Eiri had been a shy, lonely boy craving the love of a father and confused by the raging hormones of puberty. It hadn't been about desire – not really.

I really, really didn't want to think about this.

Something caught my eye and I looked down. The songbird's lyrics had just landed at my feet. Despite feeling an unexpected jolt of excitement at this sudden contact, I kept my face completely still as I bent to pick them up.

_Stop that! What are you doing? __Right - just give them back to the clumsy little tyke and keep walking! No – don't read them!_

More sound advice from my inner scold, but I found I didn't want to take it. I looked down at the paper.

"_Amidst a noisy crowd of people, the murmured words melt away, scattered at my feet…_ _I wander aimlessly…"_

Fanciful teenage drivel; raw, embarrassingly heartfelt. I tried to dismiss it as some crappy poetry the songbird was writing for his girlfriend, but these weren't the thoughts of a teenaged boy blissfully in love; they were the hopes of one who _wanted_ to be in love and still had great expectations of what that would be like.

Anger swelled in me like rising nausea. He had no right to keep such expectations. He had no right to be so naïve. Not at his age, not in this city. Not in this accursed world. Naïveté like that was dangerous. It gave idiots like him ideas, made them think they could get what they wanted, just by wishing and dreaming and pleading hard enough. Idiots like him should be strapped down and tortured until they realised that the world was cruel and unforgiving and not some child's playground where they could live forever with their favourite Sensei. And that when a man said he thought they were _so_ sweet, and he was _so _fond of them, and read the crap they wrote and said that they were _so _clever, and _so_ talented, that man usually had an ulterior motive. Idiots like that caused more grief in the world than anyone else, just by their blind trust - by their complete lack of healthy, streetwise cynicism.

I could feel the songbird's eyes on me. I half expected him to run up and snatch the paper from my hand, possibly kicking me in the shins to be on the safe side, but he didn't move. Finally I looked up, fixing my gaze upon him, looking deep into his eyes.

As I did so, I saw a blush creep over his cheeks and fought back a smirk. I always had that effect on the sensitive ones – the losers, I should say. I'd seen the look so many times at book signings. That deadly combination of loneliness and trust, their eyes begging for acknowledgement. They would be ridiculously easy to seduce, the boys as much as the girls, which is perhaps why I have never bothered with either. Given the slightest encouragement they would not doubt claim me as their Sensei and begin bombarding me with their stories and poems.

I decided it was time to get this over with. And I found I was looking forward to it. "Are you the one who…" I gave the paper a last contemptuous glance, "…wrote this?"

"Oh – yes!" The boy's gaze brightened and he relaxed just a little. "It's kind of like – lyrics," he admitted shyly, "kind of a love song, actually…"

There. Was I right or was I right? Any moment now he'd be asking for my opinion. His ingenuous innocence was infuriating. What was wrong with him? I could see he was attracted to me, but didn't he have any self-preservation instincts at all? He was alone with a strange man in the park at night, for God's sake! Did he really think this was a good time to discuss his lyrical abilities?

Another hard, blinding flash of memory.

"_Sensei, Sensei! Have you read my story yet, Sensei?"_ That stupid little bastard, running across Central Park to meet _him, _giving _him_ his crappy little scribblings to read and really thinking he might be sincere in his praise, never seeing the double meaning lying so close beneath the surface of the encouraging words.

"_How__… mature you are, Eiri-kun. How much… passion there is in your writing…"_

How much better it would have gone for both of them if _he _had just scrunched up that pathetic story and shoved it down his – my - throat.

I didn't want it to be me. It wasn't me. It was Uesugi Eiri, someone I had left behind. But I still had his memories. And to remember the raw tenderness of his love for his Sensei was as excruciatingly embarrassing as being paraded naked in public. I hated to be naked. Even after sex I would shower and dress as quickly as I could, to the chagrin of some of my more romantic lovers who held out hopes of kissing and cuddling and the whispering of sweet nothings beneath the tousled sheets.

Now, as I looked down at that blushing, pink haired boy, it was as though Uesugi Eiri, whose worthless remains I thought I had discarded in New York, had been reincarnated and was standing right before me in the park. And hatred overwhelmed me.

I had to do _something._ It was my public duty – my way of repaying the debt Uesugi Eiri had left me. One less air-headed little twerp in the world could only be a good thing.

I couldn't exactly strangle the kid – not without gloves. And giving him a good thrashing was out too - my looks were too distinctive, even if he hadn't already recognised me. _Romance author assaults boy in park_ would be a headline even Seguchi couldn't spin into oblivion. Besides, it was better to hit him where it would _really _hurt. Where it would really have hurt Uesugi Eiri, at any rate.

"You call this garbagea love song?" I demanded, keeping my voice cool and steady. "You know _nothing."_

"– _Huh - ?" _The songbird's response was so soft it was barely audible but I could hear the slight tremble in it. With a faint smirk I let held the paper up – and then let it go. But the boy appeared to be too stunned by my criticism even to notice, let alone chase after it again. Moving closer to him, I drew the cigarette from my mouth and exhaled smoke in his direction, though the breeze blew it back towards me, just as it had blown his lyrics. It was time to move in for the kill.

"It's the worst thing I've ever read," I told him, "you've got zero talent. Take my advice and just quite now."

I stole a glance down at his face before I moved on. Those eyes of his, a remarkably pretty twilight blue, were beginning to moisten. I looked away again quickly.

I didn't turn back when I heard a loud thump – what sounded like the songbird falling to the ground. I heard a gasp; then he cried out to me, demanding to know why I had to be so harsh.

And then… the soft but unmistakable sound of weeping.

Happy in the knowledge that my duty was done, I carried on with my walk.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY**** by Moon71**

**Summary: **While walking in the park one evening, Eiri has a fateful encounter. (Well, we all know _that, _but this is from _his_ point of view!)

**Disclaimer (this chapter): **Just to make it clear, I do not own Harper Lee's _To Kill a Mockingbird!_

**Chapter 2: **Eiri walks away and thinks that's the end of that… but retribution comes in many strange forms…

**Note: **I know I've said this before, but I really was overwhelmed by the response this story has received. It's a bit of an odd one, so I'm reassured that people are enjoying it! I'm only here to entertain you! Thank you to EVERYONE who was kind enough to leave such supportive comments! I will not hold things up here, but will make a few "responses" after this chapter!

* * *

I managed to get as far as the other end of the path before the next memory flash broke over my brain, flooding it with the sunlight and the sweet scents of a summer afternoon. It was so overpowering it stopped me in my tracks, giving me no time to slam closed the door from which it had sprung.

I was _there._ I was in the park with Yuki, sitting beneath a tree. I could _hear_ him, as clearly as if he was standing next to me. I could see him smiling that enigmatic smile which had always given me a shiver of pleasure…

Or had it really been pleasure? Hadn't it been something a little more complex? Longing, perhaps, mixed with doubt? That smile made him seem so clever, but also so remote. What had made him smile just then? What had we been reading together?

'"_Your father's right… mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy... they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird."'_

Oh yes. _To Kill A Mocking Bird. _It was a standard enough text for him to have picked, an American classic, always popular with children the age I had been. But what had he said? What had he asked me?

"_Do you agree with that, Eiri-kun?"_

"_Oh, yes, Sensei! I would think it was terribly cruel to kill __something as innocent as a song bird!"_

There. There was the smile. As if I was utterly naïve, as if I knew nothing and was to be pitied because of it.

"_I sometimes wonder," _I hear him say, _"if innocence isn't the greatest sin of all."_

I hadn't understood then. But I understand now. _I _was the one being mocked.

The strangest thing that happened in the next moment was not that I had caught myself referring to the experiences of Uesugi Eiri as _mine,_ instead of _his, _but the fact that I did not need to struggle to shut the memory out. My mind drifted away from it all by itself.

Back to the song-bird.

Had _I _just committed the sin the Atticus Finch had admonished his children about? My attack had been unprovoked and – it could be argued – unjustified. The kid hadn't asked for my opinion and if he liked to sing, or to write soppy songs, what harm was he doing to me?

Damn it – why did he have to start _crying? _It was only a bloody joke.

Well – no, all right, it hadn't been a joke. It had been an insult, fully intended to wound. To clip the songbird's wings and send him plunging from the sky.

_Stop that. Stop that idiotic songbird crap right now. He's not a__ pretty little canary in a cage; he's just some damned brat who fancies himself the next Sakuma Ryuichi. As soon as your back was turned he probably made some obscene gesture and dismissed you as someone too old and uncool to "tune into his wavelength", or however the hell the street slang goes these days…_

But if that was so, why had he started crying?

_Maybe you imagined it._

I thought for a moment. No – no, I hadn't imagined it. I had heard him weeping, quietly but distinctly. And the tone of his voice when he had shouted after me was filled with anguish, not indignation. The little fool was overreacting – it wasn't something to cry over. What a baby.

Now _that _was odd – as I had replayed the memory in my head, just to be sure, I had felt a sharp pain in my chest. Was I about to have a heart attack? That would be the most exquisite irony – to collapse in agony in the park in the middle of the night, my only hope of salvation some teenaged brat whose nose I had just put severely out of joint. Perhaps he would come to my rescue… or perhaps he would give me a good kicking and steal my wallet before he waltzed on by.

Or perhaps he would just stay where he was all night… crying.

There. There was the pain again. It came whenever I thought of him crying! Could I seriously, _seriously_ be experiencing a pang of regret?

Maybe the kid was younger than I thought after all. Or maybe the world had just been unnecessarily kind to him up until tonight. If so, then I had done _him_ a favour, as well as all the people whose lives would be ruined by his malevolent naïveté.

"_The brilliant lights, glaring one way… illuminate me as I freeze…_

It was strange how the words of his song lingered in my head – I had only glanced at the damn paper, and I was hardly in a possession of a photographic memory. At any rate,_ he'd _damn well freeze if he didn't pick his arse up from the concrete and go home.

I wondered if I should go back and see if he was all right. You could never tell with these sensitive types – he might be back there banging his head against the concrete. Or he might have gone off to drown himself in the fountain.

The idea was utterly ridiculous but thanks to my treacherous writer's brain, I could not help wondering what would happen if I did go and check. Would he still be there? Would he still be crying? Would he leap for my throat or kick me in the nuts or just tell me to go fuck myself with my own critique? Or would he… just possibly… be pleased to see me?

I couldn't help it. In my mind I was already retracing my steps. He was there, of course – if he wasn't, the story would end on a short, bitter note. Meaningful, but depressing and perhaps a little trite. "Listen, kid," I would say, "no hard feelings, okay? Get on home before you catch cold."

That wasn't a very satisfying ending either. Better for him to challenge me, to demand to know what was so awful about his lyrics. And how would I respond?

_The brilliant lights, glaring one way… illuminate me as I freeze…_

Actually the imagery wasn't all that bad. It recalled a sense I had had on some of my more subdued nightly wanderings, passing the lighted windows of house after house, and… just for a moment… envying the occupants of those bright rooms, as if I was excluded from such luxury, as if I had no home to go to and no-one to welcome me when I got there… Such musings meant nothing, of course – they were just one more idea thrown up by my creative brain – but there was a terrible loneliness in such thoughts, just as there was in those words.

Lonely words from a lonely boy? Crap. More like sentimental drivel from a hormonal, lovelorn adolescent.

_I awake and you ar__e there. A shimmering vision, a faint silhouette… _

Amazing; I remembered it all, almost as if I'd written it myself. It might have been written about the very moment of our meeting… as if the boy had been waiting for me… expecting me…

Complete hogwash, of course. But I couldn't help but wonder who he _was_ thinking of when he wrote it. Who _did_ he long to find beside him when he woke? Some spotty flat-chested girl he had the hots for? Somehow that clashed with my scenario, and I dismissed it. Better to go back to my original assessment. He wasn't in love, but he wanted to be.

That was probably crap too. He probably just saw himself as a great songwriter and thought the words sounded romantic. But that didn't fit my scenario either, and nor did his being a total, twenty-four carat moron, so I decided he would be embarrassed that I had caught him blubbing like a girl and would blush when I offered him my handkerchief. (Well what did you expect? That I'd wipe his tears away myself? Give me some credit! I'm Yuki Eiri, not Barbara Cartland!)

Yes, I liked the idea of him blushing, just a little.

I would wait until he'd wiped his face and then I would turn to go. But he would call me back, demanding to know what right I had to criticise his lyrics. So I'd tell him.

"_What?_ You mean you really _are _Yuki Eiri? _The _Yuki Eiri?"

No. I didn't like that. It was too much like the dimwit girls who made feeble attempts to act nonchalant around me, pretending they didn't know who I was when they had quite obviously gone out of their way to pick a table close to mine or bump into me in the supermarket.

Besides, he was a boy, and my fan-base was predominately, if not exclusively, female. The scenario just wouldn't work.

We might argue for a bit (I could supply the dialogue later) – and finally, when he looked utterly stricken, or because the debate had unexpectedly caught my imagination, or because I was bored by the prospect of a night at home alone, (I'd choose which one later) I would suggest we go for a cup of coffee somewhere (or a drink? No; too suggestive, and besides, I hadn't decided how old he was.)

What next. I would look at his crap lyrics and help make them… not quite so crap. He would try to express how he was feeling and I would tell him that pouring out his heart into a song wasn't enough – it had to be well written and properly structured. He had to learn when despite the fact two words technically meant the same thing, one might be a better choice than the other.

Of course he would be pathetically grateful for my input. Perhaps, to test drive our collaboration, he would sing the lyrics to me. _Sing to me, Songbird, _I would say, and, not knowing whether I was mocking him or flirting with him, but unable to resist me, he would sing.

Well? So what if I cast myself as the brooding, enigmatic anti-hero? It's the role all of my readers have cast me in, certain beyond all reason that I base such characters upon myself. And this was, after all, supposed to be a Yuki Eiri novel.

At any rate, because this _was _a Yuki Eiri novel, as soon as the boy had finished I would wish him well and wander off into the night. He would long to call me back, to ask for us to be friends; but wouldn't have the courage and the scene would end with him realising that his song was perfect, but he was now more lonely than ever, and life, far from being the idyll he had fantasised about, was a real bitch.

The End.

What a load of total, complete and utter crap. I should remember to check my temperature when I got home because I was beginning to wonder if I was in the early stages of encephalitis.

Now in a towering temper and with a headache to match, I strode out of the park and headed for home.

TBC: Eiri goes home… but his new muse goes with him…

**

* * *

NOTE****S:** For the purpose of the smooth flow of the story I am slightly misquoting _To Kill a Mocking Bird. _This is the correct quote in full: 

"_When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn't teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus wasn't interested in guns. Atticus said to __Jem__, "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever hear Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "You're father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make __music__ for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird."'_

I don't know why this quote popped into my head as I was writing this, but once it did, I thought it rather appropriate to Eiri's behaviour not only in my story but in the early stages of the Gravitation story itself.

A few responses: **Eiri-chick – **You noted you didn't expect the story to continue, and I don't blame you! When I came up with this, I was set on ending it where Chapter 1 ends, and leaving the rest to history, as it were. Then the idea of Eiri the writer thinking up alternative scenarios appeared in my brain, and the whole thing just ran away. I would be interested to know what people think – does it get too far fetched?!

And **Overskill – **will reply properly, but wanted to comment here about what you say about the spelling of the two Yuki names. That is _so_ interesting – sadly I am ignorant of the intricacies of kanji (would it alter the pronunciation – say for example the difference between John and Jean? Or would one be a diminutive or a derivative of the other? Just curious!) Whatever the truth, the psychology of it is fascinating – far more so, for me, than if he had simply taken Kitazawa's name exactly.

Oh and that typo – oh sh-t! How many times did I proofread that? Not as many as I should have done, obviously!!


	3. Chapter 3

**THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY by Moon71**

**Summary: **While walking in the park one evening, Eiri has a fateful encounter. (Well, we all know _that, _but this is from _his_ point of view!)

**Chapter 3: **Eiri finally get home, but with a persistent muse hard on his heels…

**NOTES: **As always, huge thanks are owed to those who took time to review. Especial thanks to those on Gurabite who I couldn't respond to directly! I try to pay as close attention to the manga and anime as I can, especially when I'm basing something on a scene or trying to get inside the head of one of the characters. I don't know about the rest of you, but, artistic license aside, I really hate it when fic writers completely ignore what Ms Murakami implicitly states through her characters (like for example that Tohma's love for Eiri has nothing to do with sex… and that Tohma was fully in favour of the Eiri / Shuichi relationship until Eiri got sick… hint hint… though I do appreciate that even she sometimes contradicts herself…)

Anyway, enough ranting, but it's good to know all that hard, hard study, forcing myself to watch episode one of the anime, and read vol 1 of the manga, _and_ the OVA, doesn't go completely unnoticed…

* * *

The second beer should have done the trick. In spite of the complaints of my father, relayed through Mika, I am not that heavy a drinker. I like my pleasures, and beer is one of them, but the idea of drinking myself into a stupor alone is really rather unappealing to me, and the idea of drinking myself into a stupor with a group of "drinking buddies" is actually repulsive. But one or two beers usually helps to settle my head when the voices won't shut up.

This time, however, the alcohol only seemed to make the voices clearer.

It was a divine judgement, I decided with some resignation. Yuki was wrong and Harper Lee was right. An unprovoked attack on an innocent songbird was a sin, and so was the unfounded presumption that Yuki-Sensei possessed the wisdom of a god. And it would seem as though my punishment was to suddenly lose the ability to forget.

But it wasn't Yuki I was remembering. I really, _really_ didn't want to remember any of that, and for some reason my memory did not insist that I should. What it wanted… was the songbird.

The next scenario began to form even as I crushed the empty beer can in my hand and gazed down at it, wondering if it was time for a third, though my head was pounding and I was starting to feel a little sick. I closed my eyes and tried to recite the twelve times table from one to three hundred but before I could get past five times twelve I was back in the crummy little all night café (it had to be crummy, I decided, with a slovenly waitress, horrible coffee, stale cake and a few lonely drifters passing the time), offering to introduce the boy to Seguchi while he gazed up at me with violet eyes glowing with admiration.

Yes, I know. A total waste of mental energy. Yuki Eiri does _not _do _shonen-ai, _let alone _yaoi. _Mizuki had once vaguely suggested I might try it, reminding me that that peculiar little sub-genre was popular with the same bored housewives and angst-ridden schoolgirls who enjoyed my books. _Just as a one-off, Yuki-san. As a change of pace. An artistic experiment. You wouldn't want to start growing stale, would you? _I had told her where to stick her artistic experiment and she had not suggested it again.

Then again, if it was one sided and ended unhappily…

As we sit in the café, the boy mistakenly assumes I am trying to pick him up. At first he is frightened, but by the time we part with a promise to meet at the NG building the next morning, he is not sure whether he is relieved or disappointed that I have not made a move. By the time we've seen Seguchi… (I'm not sure about this bit – Seguchi's such a nosey bastard and he tells Mika everything, for all he insists he's taking no sides in the family feud… besides, I'd have to decide what his verdict will be… Well it doesn't matter, since I'll never write this shit anyway.) Where was I? Right, I'm saying goodbye to the boy. He makes some clumsy pass, but I turn him down. Same ending, really. Just as he has a chance of getting what he'd always dreamed of, he's found something he wants even more that will forever be beyond his reach.

End of story, once again.

Only my mind won't let it go.

A third beer. While I was in the kitchen, I looked at the packets of medication my psychiatrist has prescribed. The anti-depressants are a part of my routine. The sedatives I try to avoid if it's humanly possible. They do get me to sleep, but it's not a good sleep. More often than not, it's tainted by nightmares from which it is exceptionally hard to wake. But perhaps tonight I should make an exception, even if washing them down with beer wouldn't be the brightest move I've ever made.

If I offered the idea to one of those silly women who write that boy-love trash, would it finally go away?

But it wasn't the idea. It was the songbird. The _boy._

I closed my eyes. And there we were. In the café again. The coffee, as I said, is horrible. I suggest, quite without thinking, that we have some back at my place instead. Innocent as a newborn babe, he agrees. He's there, now, sitting beside me on the couch, talking excitedly about how helpful my advice is. But I'm tired of talking… and it's getting late… and he's sitting very close to me… so close I can hear him breathing… so close I can feel his warmth… and without thinking, I…

_Stop this. Right now. What are you, some sort of pervert?_

Oh shut up. It's only a blasted story. A writer's exercise.

_It's a damned__ fantasy and you know it. If you're going to have depraved daydreams like this, at least turn him into a girl!_

I did give it a try. But it wouldn't stick. When I closed my eyes I found myself trying to picture what the songbird would look like naked. His lips, I recalled, were full for a boy's. What would it be like to kiss him? Then I tried to imagine holding him in my arms. I half expected to catch myself imagining the full breasts and soft curves of a woman when I played this scenario out – I have very little other experience to call upon. But when the scene resumes he is as he must be – small but firm and strong, a young man.

All the same, I allow him to tremble a little, then to smile shyly at me as he did in the park. Yes, that's just perfect. A blush too? Maybe I've used that once too often. He's afraid, but he wants this as much as I do. Has he ever been with another boy before? I decide not. It works better if I'm his first man. He calls me by name for the first time. _Eiri._ And I kiss him.

I awoke from the fantasy with a start. I couldn't believe it. The final insult. I was actually _aroused. _Painfully so.

_This is ridiculous. Call one of the girls whose numbers you keep for emergencies. _

No way. I'm not that desperate.

_You seem pretty desperate to me._

Fuck off. Yuki Eiri doesn't _do _desperate. Those women are on the reserve list for curing writer's block, not for curing "oh dear, Yuki Eiri has started fancying boys." And even then its only for the most dire emergencies – I won't have any woman calling herself my muse, and bragging I've turned to her when I've had trouble with my writing. I don't have living muses; all I have is observation, imagination, and a general belief in the irredeemable corruption of the human race.

With a groan as much of frustration as of desire, I headed for the bathroom, throwing off my clothes and turning on the shower. A cold shower, I thought, would finally drive such thoughts far, far away. But whether by some subconscious desire or simply because I was distracted, I hit the hot tap instead. The warm water spilling over my body sent me into a trance.

When I closed my eyes this time, I was walking back through the park.

The kid is there, sitting on a bench with his hands tucked between his knees. Gazing timidly up at me through thick pink locks. Waiting for me.

Of course he's waiting for me. He wrote that song so that I'd come back.

I pull him into my arms and kiss him. He's frightened and fights me at first; but then he gives in. Very soon he is returning my kiss with passion. Right there, in the cool evening air, I undress him. And I make love to him.

_Do what?! If you're going to have this absurd fantasy, at least describe it as it is. Fucking._

No.

_Having sex, then._

No. It doesn't work. My writer's brain won't allow it. We're making love.

And it's glorious. Beyond anything I have ever experienced or imagined. I try to conjure the details – my readers like details, gauzed in soft romantic cliché – but such questions as who gives and who receives, who dominates and who submits, don't seem to matter. We are both naked now but we feel no shame. We are both young – I am still only twenty-two, damn it, only _twenty two_ – and we are beautiful. The songbird makes me beautiful. He lets me share in his clean, sweet youth. He has come here to teach me to sing.

_Teach you to _what? _Are you insane?_ _Stop this, you freak. You don't fancy boys, remember? You're Yuki Eiri, the Tokyo lady-killer, remember? What are you, some sort of closet queer? Stop this… stop this… stop this…_

That perpetually castigating voice, the cold, metallic voice of truth I had always thought to be me at my most cynical and self-aware, recedes to the level of an annoying mosquito whine before finally fading away. A new voice replaces it, singing words of joy. It could be the songbird's… or it could be Uesugi Eiri's – mine – from a very long time ago.

It was only when the song became a strangled cry that I realised it really was coming from deep in my throat. With a speed that would have devastated my female admirers I had reached my climax. I was exhausted. My heart was fluttering. And I was actually trembling.

I washed myself quickly, dressed for bed and headed into the kitchen for the sedatives.

* * *

I awoke late the next morning with a brain sodden with half-remembered dreams. I knew it had been a bad night, but could not work out why. Then I remembered that taking sedatives always made me feel like this, so I had to have taken them that evening, though I could hardly remember why.

It didn't matter. Feeling slightly queasy, I put coffee on to brew and headed into the shower.

Within half an hour I was in front of my laptop, finishing off the revisions Mizuki had suggested. When she had first asked for them, I had felt a small wave of despair. They seemed impossible. I was half tempted to delete the whole damn manuscript and start from scratch. But today the ideas flowed without effort. I could even appreciate my editor's reasoning, and concede that she was right – more or less.

It was only when I took a sip of the coffee I had reheated from breakfast and found it slightly too bitter that a flicker of memory danced through my mind. Drinking bad coffee in a cheap café.

With a pink haired boy.

One of the drug-induced dreams from last night, I supposed. I certainly couldn't remember ever doing such a thing for real.

But some of it felt real. A pink haired boy… in the park. A song. His song.

But when I tried to recall his face, it blurred. Whatever the words of the song had been, I could not remember them now. I remembered walking in the park the night before – I thought I remembered the boy. But that was all. And something told me it was not worth closer examination.

_Don't go there._

Fine. I won't.

I downloaded the corrections onto a memory stick and dropped it into my trouser pocket before pulling myself up out of my chair. My head was still aching, but I decided not to put Mizuki off. She would only insist on coming to collect the revisions herself, insisting email was not secure enough, and would find some excuse to go through them with me right then. Better to meet her on neutral territory and let the publishing house bear the cost of a three-course lunch at a classy restaurant. One thing I liked about Mizuki – she made good use of her expense account.

As it turned out, lunch with Mizuki turned out to be a thoroughly pleasant affair. My headache gone, I found myself in good spirits. The good wine and the excellent food helped as well. Visibly relieved that I had not gone AWOL or arrived in a sulk, Mizuki was lively and amusing and actually talked of other subjects besides work.

By the time we parted it was getting late and it had begun pelting down with rain. Having offered chivalrously to drive Mizuki back to the publishing house I set out for home.

That was when some suicidal idiot jumped out in front of my car.

I slammed my foot down on the brake. The car skidded to a halt mere inches from where that moron was still standing, arm stretched out, apparently commanding me to stop. Heart racing, adrenalin pumping, I threw open the car door and burst out to face the lunatic who could have killed us both – and damaged my precious car in the process.

And then I saw him, just as if he had sprung from my dreams. Pink hair dripping wet but still quite unmistakable; boyish face flushed with a mixture of shock and defiant anger. All at once, the barriers fell and the lost thoughts and images of the night before surged back in like a tidal wave.

Memory, it would seem, persisted… no matter how hard we might fight to stop it.

**THE END?**

**NOTE: **You never know, there may be a sequel – I have no intention of rewriting the whole manga or anime in Eiri's voice of course, but I have thought about doing their second meeting. You never know! Life is imitating art – like Eiri I'm finding this idea won't lay down and die…


End file.
